Behold the powers of my mind and fingers, cause I shall strike upon thee!

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Coffee for the people!

As any other normal student I am addicted to coffee. I mean to expect a person to read about theory on litterature analysis without a stimulating product which keeps one awake is like expecting someone to consume alcohol without enjoying a cigarette. In short it's inhuman.

I myself would prefer speed or some other funny artificially made stimulant, but it is quite illegal to consume such things and the fact that I would probably not be able to remember anything, at least not litterature analysis theory, after consuming such material. Because of this I keep myself to coffeine.

On the University they sell something which they call "coffee". Its a brown floating liquid which taste like it contains a slight bit of E.coli (for you who don't know, this means "shit". It's a quite popular ingredient in food in Norway.) For this stuff they charge you between 5 and 10 NOK per cup and normally it's impossible to consume the whole cup before your stomach goes to dirct action. If your stomach does not make a revolt by this coffee you could probably eat from the streets and still survive. That would be from the streets in Cuba. Its an absolute madness to serve this coffee and expect students to manage their studies.

Because of this I went out the other day and bought a coffee maker for filter coffee. This I brought with me home and placed my old one at my institute. To show me how grateful they was because of this initiative some of my costudents robbed the small plastic thing which stops the coffee from dripping if one wants a cup before it's finished. You are welcome.

Anyway as I now have brought such a miraculous machine I thought it would be wrong to also spend money on the coffee. I know that my costudents are completely broke most of the time so I don't ecpect them to help me out. But what is better than someone else buying coffee for you? To get it for free!

Because of this I sent a enquiery to some of the main importers of coffee in Norway. These where Coop, Friele, Solberg and Hansen and Max Havelar. The only one which so far has responded are Friele, but I expect that the other ones have to discuss my enquiery at the next border meeting and will reply to me soon. This is what i wrote:

Subject: A marketing proposition

Dear Friele!

My name is John Tender and I have a proposition for you.

I am an exchange student at the University of Oslo where I write my master thesis in media and communication. But we have encountered a problem.

For a long time now there has been a depressive mood amongst the students. At first we thought it was our thesis which where horribly boring, but that was not the problem. I promise you, it is not boring to play video games or watch movies and then write about playing video games or watch movies. It's quite a joyful study. But now we have finally found the source of our problem: Lack of good coffein.

You see we have a canteen at our institute, but the coffee here is horrible and they don't even pay you for drinking it. Actually we have to pay for a cup of this black stuff they serve us under the name of "coffee"! That's horrendous! But we have used our collective mental capasity and found a sollution and bought our own coffemaker for filter coffee.

Now the problem is that we spent most of our student loan on this (not all, but one have to live also) and therefore I write to you with my offer. I think this is a great idea and I hope you also would like it.

The point is that without coffee there will be no coffein and i believe that we would need a box a week to make everyone happy. Would you be interested in sending us a box of your best coffee weekly free of charge? Of course you now ask "What's in it for us?" and that is a truly well placed question.

I thought it would be great if we, if we get this coffee, decorate our reading area with posters stating "Our thesis are made on Friele coffee!", of course it would be best if you made these posters to make them look professional. Imagine how this would affect your business! We are all going to be highly successfull (exept Mr. Itter, but he is another story) and we would be good consumers of coffee until our death. Imagine then which coffee we will consume. Of course the one we enjoyed during our happy student days! And new people will come into this reading room every year so this is long time marketing for you. Of course if you keep up your coffee deliveries.

If you are into this, don't hesitate, but send off the first box today (and also the posters). Just send it to:

The Students at Institutt for Media and CommunikasjonGaustadalléen 21Forskningsparken II0317 Oslo

Nice doing business with you!

Sincerely yours

John Tender

This is what Friele answered:

Thank you for your elegantly written inquiry for coffee.

However, we receive a lot of applications of this kind every day. We havetherefore decided to earmark our support to various social purposes ingiven periods.. For the time being this concerns primarily Brazil fromwhere we buy most of our cofffee, but also Kenya and Guatemala.

Viewed against this background we can not meet your application for supportfor this purpose.

Med vennlig hilsen/Kind regards

KAFFEHUSET FRIELE ASAxxxx Kxxxxxx Hxxx

Now I know that Friele is really bastard down in Brazil. Their workers nearly doesn't get paid and Friele are making a hilarious amount of money which at least does not go back to the Brazilian people. Mr. Friele is also the Mayor in the town of Bergen. If you wonder there are mostly loonies living there. But I wanted to check out if Friele really would support the people of Brazil as they claim to do, so I wrote them a new enquiery:

Dear Anne.

Thank you so much for your reply.

I absolutely agree with your decision to rather suport third world countries than students in Norway. But actually we may be just the thing for you to suport. You see we do have an other exchangee, Rodrigo Fernandez, who is from Brazil. He actually comes from Ouro Preto which is a small city located in the central area of Minas Gerais. And, as I guess you are aware of, this is one of the most important coffe production areas of Brazil.

Now Rodrigo is here in Oslo and studying on his bachelor degree, but next year he will start on his master degree and he is seriously considering to continue studying here in Oslo.

Mr. Fernandez has told me that in his beautiful hometown they usualy drink Neste instant coffee! Can you believbe that? I think he is a bit of a latin liar, but he has promised me this is true "On his dads sacred grave" (His dad actually once was at a dinner with Aécio Neves, the governor of Minas Gerias, can you imagine?)

Now I see it as important that Mr. Fernandez recieves a good education, and I believe that if he gets the taste of some real coffee he will choose to stay here in Norway. So by sending us a box of coffee every week you will support a Brazilian in recieving the best education there is. If that is not suportive to the Brazilian community I will rest my case.

Mr. Fernandez will of course also have to learn to dress properly so he can sustain the Norwegian winter, but if you help us with coffee we will manage to do that job. Mr. Fernandez has also met a beautiful Norwegian girl (actually there are three, he claims this to be a cultural thing...) but if he leaves, this partnership of love will probably be broken. So by sending us coffee you will not only help the community of Minas Gerias, but also make some love in the world! What could be better?

We also got some people from Zimbabwe at our institute, but we hope to get some Kenyans over next semester and coffee delivery from you will for sure also be a great hand of helping also for them. Consider this and reply me as soon as possible!

Sincerely yours,

John Tender

ps: Is it true that Mr. Friele uses his mayor necklace every Sunday when he walks out in public in Bergen? If so could you send us a poster with a photograph of this? It would look great on the wall of our reading room.

Now if Friele was really as kind as they claim to be they would prove it by both helping a person from Brazil and make some love in the world. But their reply realy dissapointed me. Friele is clearly not as kind as they claim to be. This is their reply:

Dear John

We repeat our previous answer once again:

"Thank you for your elegantly written inquiry for coffee.

However, we receive a lot of applications of this kind every day. We havetherefore decided to earmark our support to various social purposes ingiven periods.. For the time being this concerns primarily Brazil fromwhere we buy most of our cofffee, but also Kenya and Guatemala.

Viewed against this background we can not meet your application for supportfor this purpose."

When it comes to your question regarding Mayor Herman Friele, you will haveto address yourself directly to the Mayor's office in Bergen.

Med vennlig hilsen/Kind regards

KAFFEHUSET FRIELE ASAxxx Kxxxxxx Hxxx

That is such a dissapointing answer! Of course I read this the first time, it was kind of the reason why I wrote you once again! I bet you Friele didn't have time to write a new answer as they had to run of for lunch brake where they are allowed to whip some directly imported Brazilian workers. Friele has clearly none interest in neither marketing, students nor the third world. I am sorry, but I hope some of the others will reply me positively soon as I am now running low on coffee.

I wonder, should I push it a bit further and reply to Friele once more?

2 Comments:

Dear Ole Omir. This time you have done a terrible mistake. Why in the name of Steiner havent you contacted Helios Norge? I am shure their coffe is twice as good as Frieles. Mixed with a smal amount of coca-leaves, I promise: their brown beans will give you the greatest eurytmic time of your life!